Growing up, Katherine Nichols went past the Brandon Indian Residential School everyday in her school bus, but she had no idea what it was. After the school was torn down in 2000, and her parents took her to see the ruins, all she knew was that it was a school for aboriginal children.

It wasn’t until she took a first-year Native Studies course at university that she learned about the residential school system — Canadian history’s “sad chapter.”

And so when choosing a topic for her master’s thesis at the University of Manitoba, the budding forensic anthropologist was drawn back to the Brandon school, which operated from 1895 to 1972. She wanted to see if she could unravel its darkest secrets — and document all the students who had died or gone missing and where they were buried.

Handout/Katherine NicholsThe cemetery north of the Brandon Indian Residential School.

The small cemetery just north of the school has a cairn listing 11 students, but Nichols had heard whispers in the community about unmarked graves, and how they weren’t well-kept. She was certain there were secrets to be revealed.

She would be right.

After combing through reams of records in libraries and archives, and surveying swaths of the school’s property using ground-penetrating radar and aerial drones, Nichols recently published her findings: she uncovered the names of 70 students who died while attending the school and believes all of them are likely buried in or near the property — mostly in unmarked graves.

“In Western society, it is often assumed that our dead will be brought home,” Nichols wrote. “However, almost all of the parents of the children who attended and died at the (school) were not afforded this basic human right.”

Vincent Tacan, chief of the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, which owns the land, said it’s good to finally get some certainty about how many bodies are buried there. It goes to show, he said, how the school’s administrators seemed to make little effort to return children to their families or bury them properly.

“With the list of names we’ve managed to get as a result of Katherine’s work, it’ll be helpful in obtaining closure for some folks,” he said.

Tacan said his mother attended the school, and often tells the story of a “little Eskimo boy” — not older than three — who was brought to the school and cared for by the female students. One day, the boy, nicknamed “Jimmy Snow,” went missing and no one came looking for him.

“This is somebody’s young kid,” he said. “For all we know, he could still be on the site somewhere.”

Handout/Katherine NicholsForensic anthropologist Katherine Nichols recently completed her master’s thesis at
the University of Manitoba investigating burial grounds at the residential school — Canadian history’s “sad chapter.”

Nichols’ research mirrors the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which has spent years compiling stories and records related to the 150,000 aboriginal children who, over a century, were sent to 140 church-run residential schools, where they faced disease, malnutrition, and abuse.

One of the commission’s goals was to identify the students who died while attending the government-funded schools — as of last year, there were 4,100 reported cases — and locate where they were buried.

The commission will release its final report within weeks.

Set up in the late 1870s, residential schools were designed to, in the words of one government official, “get rid of the Indian problem” through aggressive assimilation. Students, some of whom were placed in schools against parents’ wishes and taken away in large cattle trucks, were not allowed to speak their language or practice their culture.

thechildrenremembered.ca/United ChurchBoys in the dining room, Brandon Indian Residential School.

Death and disease, overcrowding and malnourishment were rampant, said Ry Moran, director of the Winnipeg-based National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which will house all the records collected by the commission.

Often, students were buried at their school, but their parents couldn’t get to them, he said. “Their parents never had the ability to say goodbye because they may live 600 kilometres away.”

Untold numbers also died after being sent away to sanatoriums or hospitals. The lack of systematic record-keeping of student deaths meant many families did not know where their loved ones were buried.

The Brandon Indian Residential School, run first by the Methodist Church and then the United Church, was no different.

Built near the Assiniboine River and next to an experimental farm, the school’s location was chosen for its proximity to a settler community, where, in the words of one government official, the white population could “save them from relapsing into ignorance and barbarianism.”

Students, brought from as far as Alberta and Quebec, were forced to work in the school’s barns, agricultural operations and vegetable gardens. Some girls also worked as domestic servants for the school’s principals.

A handful of the school’s survivors shared with Nichols stories of physical and sexual abuse. One story “broke my heart and left me with no words, except to say that I was sorry for what had happened,” she wrote.

Nichols’ attempts to retrieve death and burial records or cemetery maps often proved frustrating, however. Records were either missing or inaccessible or didn’t sync up.

In 1905, the Department of Indian Affairs’ annual report noted five deaths at the school, while the Methodist Church records showed three. Only nine deaths were registered with the Manitoba Vital Statistics Agency during the school’s 77-year run.

Diane Haglund, a retired United Church archivist in Manitoba who served as Nichols’ mentor, had encountered the same challenges years ago when a couple from northern Manitoba asked for help finding the remains of their daughter. Haglund worked with a provincial archaeologist to try to help the desperate couple but came up empty.

“For First Nations folks, tracing that genealogy, that ancestry, and knowing where their dead are buried, it’s extremely difficult,” she said. “You just can’t get the record in the way that the rest of us, relatively easily, can.”

But the records Nichols did find suggest more students are buried at or near the school than was previously thought.

Correspondence from the school’s principal confirmed that the school had operated a cemetery just south of the school, near the river, from 1895 to about 1912. Separate records showed that 51 students died at the school between 1895 and 1911. Thus, it is “very plausible” they were buried at this location, Nichols wrote.

Today, the site is occupied by a private campground. There are no gravestones or markers, just a fenced area containing a small monument with a plaque that reads “Indian Children Burial Ground.” Nichols was denied permission to do forensic work on the property because the landowner was under the impression it was only a “memorial garden,” not a cemetery.

Handout/Diane Haglund

Nichols had better luck getting access to the school’s second cemetery — the one north of the school with the cairn listing 11 names.

Records unearthed by Nichols indicate there may actually be 26 individuals, who died from 1912 to 1957, buried there — not all of them students.

That finding is buttressed by some of her fieldwork. Nichols got permission to survey the site using electromagnetic ground conductivity equipment and ground-penetrating radar, which can detect anomalies beneath the surface. The survey work supported the potential existence of 24 to 26 graves, she said.

Further, interviews with three of the school’s survivors strongly suggested three more bodies were buried directly behind the school, Nichols wrote. They remembered going out to hang the laundry and being told by the matron not to go into a treed area because of three student graves.

Recently, the school’s ruins were cleared away. The long-term vision for the site is to turn it into a healing lodge, Tacan said.

Moran said the research started by Nichols and the commission must continue: there is a lot of work still to be done. “Locating the graves, understanding which children attended the schools and then never returned, is a huge research task.”

Nichols is certain the 70 students’ names she uncovered do not represent all those who died at the school. She said she cannot imagine what it’s like not knowing where your own child is buried.

“It’s a sense of not having any closure, the sense of unknowing. People can’t move on without knowing where their loved ones are buried, where they ended up and what happened to them.”

Brandon, Man., is a small prairie city that was settled by European risk-takers and Chinese railway labourers, who remade themselves into farmers and small business people. Things pretty much stayed the same for most of our 135 year history, until the day that Maple Leaf Foods came to town, bringing with it the promise of 2,000 well‐paying jobs and all the economic benefits associated with that.

The majority of day shift at Maple Leaf’s Brandon facility was staffed with local and regional hires, but there was never quite enough employees to run the plant at optimum efficiency, and no capacity within the regional labour force to staff a second shift, which was essential for the plant’s viability. There was no doubt that the local and regional labour market was not going to provide the workers needed for this demanding, physical work, regardless of how much the company paid, or how many additional benefits were offered. Something needed to change.

Brandon is 200 km from the province’s next major urban centre. Our unemployment rate is always much lower than the national average. Our tight labour market makes it difficult for employers of all types to compete against the allure of the energy sector.

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The solution came through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). Low-skilled workers in other countries, who were already familiar with the rigours of working in the meat-processing industry, leapt at the chance to obtain stable employment, gain production experience in Canada and carve out a better life for their families. Maple Leaf continues to try to recruit locally, but only a very small portion of the overall plant cohort requirements are met this way. Nor is this problem specific to Brandon. It affects meat packers in many other cities and towns across the country.

The secret is quite simple: We treat foreign workers as transitional workers, rather than temporary ones

Recently, however, the TFWP has come under attack. Stories on the evening news make it sound as though foreign workers are stealing jobs from Canadians, but this does not reflect the experience that we have had here in Brandon. In fact, Brandon has been called upon time and again from centres across Canada to share what has enabled our community to successfully integrate and retain such a large number of temporary foreign workers.

The secret is quite simple: We treat foreign workers as transitional workers, rather than temporary ones. They arrive in Brandon through the TFPW, but we then help transition these individuals into permanent residents.

Brandon’s newcomers have dramatically changed our community for the better. Our children experience multiculturalism every day in their classrooms. The average age of our population is decreasing and we are seeing population growth like we have never seen before: Birth rates have risen notably, declining enrolment in our public school system has totally reversed and newcomers are starting small businesses on a regular basis. Our economy is the strongest it has ever been.

Even though we were a very homogeneous community, our common history of immigration, of pulling up roots and planting them in foreign soil in search of a better life, was part of our collective experience. We are, and continue to be, primarily a city of first-, second- and third-generation immigrants.

The local school classroom is always the first place that our newcomers begin to stretch their community wings

As the mayor of a small prairie city that has successfully adapted to rapidly changed circumstances with the arrival of thousands of newcomers, I would suggest that our community would benefit, not from a greater reliance on the TFWP or more restrictive parameters for the program, but rather through a greater integration with the immigration system. Most of the foreign workers are here because they desire a better life for their families; because Canada is seen as a safe, prosperous place to raise children. Until the point in time in which the skills and labour gap that stymies the meat-processing, and many other industries, is addressed, programs such as the TFWP will be essential to the sustainability of the local economy and the long-term success communities like ours.

Canada would be far better off to adopt Brandon’s approach of treating foreign workers as transitional workers and recruiting these individuals into secure jobs with opportunities to bring their families over. In my experience, these reunited families are focused on building a strong community for their children.

The local school classroom is always the first place that our newcomers begin to stretch their community wings, sitting on parent councils, volunteering in the lunchroom and helping out on class trips. With their obligation to Maple Leaf satisfied, many have started small businesses, gone back to school to enhance their skills and found places in the service and financial sectors. They are taxpayers who believe in our city and are working to make the future brighter for their children. And is that not what any mayor would want?

BRANDON, Man. — A 37-year-old woman was stabbed to death Tuesday in Brandon after she apparently tried to help another woman involved in a domestic dispute.

The incident ended with the police tactical-response unit forcing its way into an apartment to arrest a 51-year-old male suspect and rescue the second woman.

It’s the Manitoba city’s first homicide since January 2010.

Some time after 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, an acquaintance of a female resident of the apartment called police for help in retrieving property from the apartment.

Raymond Garson, who lives next door, said a young woman came to his house at 2 a.m. and asked to use his phone.

“So I let her use the phone,” Garson said. “She phoned police, and she said that there was something going on next door. What I don’t know.”

About 20 minutes later, the same young woman was in tears and banging on Garson’s door, again wanting to use the phone. She indicated her “grandmother” was lying in the back alley behind the apartment, he said. She then called 911.

“She said, ‘I think my grandma’s dead. I think my grandma’s dead.’ I didn’t dare go in the back alley by myself,” Garson said, adding he also phoned 911 after she rushed out the door.

Garson said that, along with the young woman and her grandmother, there was a 26-year-old man with them in the back lane.

While officers were on en route, a call went out for medical assistance. The first woman who had called police for aid in retrieving property had been stabbed in the back lane behind the apartment.

Police said the victim received a single stab wound to the upper body. When police arrived, witnesses told them a man had been seen pulling the second woman toward a basement suite of the apartment block.

Officers tried without success to make contact with the suspect inside the suite. Special police teams, including the tactical response unit and crisis negotiators, were called in.

Authorities told the building’s other tenants to leave and nearby residents were asked to stay indoors.

Around 6:30 a.m., the neighbourhood was shaken by a pair of large explosions as the tactical response unit made a forced entry into the apartment.

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]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/photos-rising-flood-waters-in-brandon-man/feed6stdFlood waters along Grand Valley Road approaching 18th Street in Brandon, Man. (Photo taken Friday May 6 before worst of the flood hit.)Crews work on "super sandbags," each the equivalent of 100 regular sandbangs, on 1st Street near Disndale Park in Brandon, Man. around noon on MondayRising river waters along the Trans-Canada highway bridge through Grand Valley in Brandon, ManSunset Saturday over the flooded Assiniboine River in Brandon, Man. The area of Brandon, Man. that has been ordered evacuated as of Monday morningFloods prompt Manitoba to declare state of emergencyhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/floods-prompt-manitoba-to-declare-state-of-emergency
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/floods-prompt-manitoba-to-declare-state-of-emergency#commentsTue, 10 May 2011 14:06:14 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=63662

Hampered by record flooding and the threat of heavy spring rains, the Manitoba government declared a province-wide state of emergency late Monday night and issued evacuation notices for at least five municipalities along the Assiniboine River.

The province put residents of Portage la Prairie, Headingley, St. Francois Xavier, Cartier on evacuation alert and warned that residents near the Portage Diversion, which moves water from the Assiniboine into Lake Manitoba, should be ready to leave their homes if floodwaters breached the top of the man-made channel. The warning came even as workers planned to pump more water into the diversion, which is already over-capacity.

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At least 1,000 homes in Brandon, the province’s second-largest city, had to be evacuated on Monday as the city grappled with water level not seen in the city’s history.

“In my lifetime, we’ve never seen anything like this,” said Manitoba Agriculture’s Ray Bittner of the unprecedented flooding. “It’s going to be serious.”

The province said crews would begin cutting holes in a dike on the south side of the Assiniboine River near Portage la Prairie as early as Wednesday or Thursday as portions of western Manitoba braced for as much as 70 millimetres of rain, as much as three times the seasonal average.

Intentionally breaching the dike could risk flooding 150 homes. But officials said the controlled release, which was expected to flood up to 225 square kilometres, was a better option to allowing the riverbanks to overflow on their own. That could risk flooding the Assiniboine River east of Portage la Prairie and leaving up to 500 square kilometres and 850 homes under water in the rural communities of Sanford, La Salle and Starbuck.

“The worst that can happen is an uncontrolled breach of the dike, because you can lose control of the water and where it goes,” Premier Greg Selinger said.

Brandon, Man., is grappling with record flooding on the Assiniboine River that has forced nearly 1,000 people from their homes and mobilized hundreds of soldiers to help. Local officials have found themselves facing an unexpected problem: hordes of curious onlookers crowding the dikes and stopping their cars on the city’s two main thoroughfares to snap photos. Residents were treating the flood “like a Saturday night at the movies,” complained the city’s emergency co-ordinator. City council took the unusual step of declaring a state of emergency on Sunday — in order to deal with the gawkers, not the flood. Here, the Post’s Tamsin McMahon talks to Con Arvisais, Brandon’s city clerk and director of emergency public information, about the problem of flood tourism:

Q: Why did the city declare a state of emergency?A: We had to assemble the city council early yesterday morning. … We have heavy equipment working on these dikes to build them up and we have sightseers all over the place getting in the way. We didn’t have the power to remove them unless we invoked a state of local emergency. We had to do that and we had to do it quickly.

Q: What were people doing?A: They were walking on the dikes themselves just to see the high water levels. We’re talking grown-ups, we’re talking kids. Very, very scary. We also have problems with people in cars going up and down our main thoroughfares close to the river. It’s just pandemonium as far as traffic.

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Q: How many people are coming down to sightsee?A: Enough that the contractor who we’ve hired asked us to do something because it wasn’t safe for them to even operate their equipment.

Q: How bad is the traffic?A: It took my niece half an hour using one of those major thoroughfares to go the equivalent of a city block. Just totally stalled. In the meantime, we’ve got these super-sandbags trying to hold back the water and our provincial highway people are trying to work on these things and traffic is all over the place. People are just stopping, getting out of their vehicle, walking to the side, taking pictures. It’s just insane. So with the emergency powers our police are able to get these folks to move along. We’re telling people just simply: stay away.

Q: What can you actually do to people who are stopping to take pictures?A: We can actually fine them up to $50,000. It’s drastic. But it’s the ability now to approach the people and say, “Hey we’ve got to ask you to leave here.” We’re not arresting people.

Q: Has anyone been fined? A: Not that I’m aware of. The message we’ve been sending out … I think it’s working. It needed to work quick.

Q: Are there actually good pictures to be had?A: Ironically, a lot of media people have set up web cams at different places and that’s great. We’re encouraging people to go on these sites and check out some of these. There’s eBrandon they call it, it’s got a webcam. I think it’s on the east side of the city. Westman Communications Group have got web cams set up and they’re good shots.

Brandon, Man., is grappling with record flooding on the Assiniboine River that has forced nearly 1,000 people from their homes and mobilized hundreds of soldiers to help. Local officials have found themselves facing an unexpected problem: hordes of curious onlookers crowding the dikes and stopping their cars on the city’s two main thoroughfares to snap photos. Residents were treating the flood “like a Saturday night at the movies,” complained the city’s emergency co-ordinator. City council took the unusual step of declaring a state of emergency on Sunday — in order to deal with the gawkers, not the flood. Here, the Post’s Tamsin McMahon talks to Con Arvisais, Brandon’s city clerk and director of emergency public information, about the problem of flood tourism:

Q: Why did the city declare a state of emergency?A: We had to assemble the city council early yesterday morning. … We have heavy equipment working on these dikes to build them up and we have sightseers all over the place getting in the way. We didn’t have the power to remove them unless we invoked a state of local emergency. We had to do that and we had to do it quickly.

Q: What were people doing?A: They were walking on the dikes themselves just to see the high water levels. We’re talking grown-ups, we’re talking kids. Very, very scary. We also have problems with people in cars going up and down our main thoroughfares close to the river. It’s just pandemonium as far as traffic.

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Q: How many people are coming down to sightsee?A: Enough that the contractor who we’ve hired asked us to do something because it wasn’t safe for them to even operate their equipment.

Q: How bad is the traffic?A: It took my niece half an hour using one of those major thoroughfares to go the equivalent of a city block. Just totally stalled. In the meantime, we’ve got these super-sandbags trying to hold back the water and our provincial highway people are trying to work on these things and traffic is all over the place. People are just stopping, getting out of their vehicle, walking to the side, taking pictures. It’s just insane. So with the emergency powers our police are able to get these folks to move along. We’re telling people just simply: stay away.

Q: What can you actually do to people who are stopping to take pictures?A: We can actually fine them up to $50,000. It’s drastic. But it’s the ability now to approach the people and say, “Hey we’ve got to ask you to leave here.” We’re not arresting people.

Q: Has anyone been fined? A: Not that I’m aware of. The message we’ve been sending out … I think it’s working. It needed to work quick.

Q: Are there actually good pictures to be had?A: Ironically, a lot of media people have set up web cams at different places and that’s great. We’re encouraging people to go on these sites and check out some of these. There’s eBrandon they call it, it’s got a webcam. I think it’s on the east side of the city. Westman Communications Group have got web cams set up and they’re good shots.